Andres Blanco was nailed trying to stretch a double into a triple in yesterday’s Rangers-Orioles game (video here). Fun part about it that wasn’t evident from the video — but which is described in this Orioles Insider post — is that after the play, Blanco was jawing with Ty Wigginton over the putout. Which, as the video makes clear, was effected by Wigginton blocking the bag.
The fun part about it? Wigginton’s response to Blanco:
Blanco got up, jawed at Wigginton, who kept raising his arm to indicate Blanco was out . . . When asked what specifically he said to Blanco, Wigginton deadpanned, “I just said, ‘You’re out.'”
I have no idea why I find this so hilarious but merely reading the account of this has me literally laughing out loud. Maybe I’m overreacting, but it seems like there’s a subtle genius on Wigginton’s part at work here, and I absolutely love it.
If umpires merely repeated “you’re out” or “it was fair” or “the ball beat the runner” and never moved off a simple declarative sentence like this we’d see way fewer ugly run-ins between managers and the boys in blue. But we’d probably see way more hilarious outbursts from the managers, angry that they couldn’t egg the impassive ump into an argument.
